China's commemoration on war anniversary echoes across world

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BEIJING, July 8 -- Media and scholars from across the world stressed Tuesday in the wake of China's commemoration on the 77th anniversary of the start of its anti-Japanese war that the international community should be vigilant against Japanese right-wing forces.

Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta noted in an article that July 7 is the day when China commemorates the start of its eight-year-long War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, which left 35 million Chinese people killed or wounded.

The commemorative activity took place against the backdrop of Tokyo's lifting last week of the ban on Japan's right to collective self-defense and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's late December visit to the Yasukuni Shrine, the Russian daily said.

In an unprecedented case, Chinese President Xi Jinping attended a major service at Lugou Bridge in suburban Beijing, where Japanese troops attacked Chinese defenders in an incident that marked the beginning of the war, the newspaper said.

Sing Siam Yit Pao daily said that China's commemoration is to remind the whole world to be vigilant against the revival of Japanese militarism.

The commemoration showed China's dissatisfaction with Japan's revision of history, said You Ji, a visiting senior research fellow at the East Asian Institute of National University of Singapore.

Japan's invasion brought huge harms to the Chinese people and the South Korean people, the professor from New South Wales University of Australia told Xinhua in Singapore on Tuesday.

Singaporean daily Lianhe Zaobao noted that Xi was the first Chinese leader to attend commemorative events for the July 7 incident since the foundation of the People's Republic of China.

"We firmly take the path of peaceful development and safeguard world peace," Xi said at the commemorative ceremony. "History is history and facts are facts. Nobody can change history or facts."

"Anyone who intends to deny, distort or beautify history will not find agreement among Chinese people and people of all other countries," he said, referring to widespread concerns that Japan is trying to distort the history of the war.

Joseph Matthews, director of the International Cooperation Department at the Asia Euro University in Phnom Penh, said he fully supports Xi's remarks.

China's commitment to peaceful development "is a very pragmatic approach towards global peace," he said. "You cannot safeguard world peace unless you take a path or make a policy that leads you towards world peace."

"I also endorse President Xi's remarks that history is history and facts are facts. we cannot deny either of them," he said. " We can forgive aggressor, but we do not forget the acts of aggression, so it is essential for all of us not to forget history."